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Saturday, August 5, 2017

In a society of managerialism, a particular value-set is salient; it can be characterized overtly or tacitly by technique as a functional means of manipulating resources (human or material). This orientation issues in an instrumentalism wherein even other human beings are viewed as means rather than as ends in themselves. Furthermore, an assumption of incrementalism rather than real change tends to accompany the orientation because the status quo is the default where the focus is on instruments. The managerial orientation can be so engrained in generally accepted “organization speak” that the modern herd hardly recognizes the penetration in modern society itself.

In the U.S. Constitutional Convention, Governeur Morris said on July 2, 1787, that the “Rich will strive to establish their dominion & enslave the rest. They always did. They always will. The proper security [against] them is to form them into a separate interest.” By this he meant the U.S. Senate. The democratic principle in the U.S. House and the aristocratic spirit in the U.S. Senate “will then controul each other.” (Madison, p. 233) Having the State Legislatures appoint their U.S. Senators—as was the case until 1913—would defeat the independence of the Senate, and hence its function as a check on the excesses of democracy in the U.S. House. Such excesses had just been evinced in Shays’ Rebellion in Massachusetts, wherein the legislature there had sided with the former soldiers who had not been paid for their service but were still to make payments on their debts. In other words, one of the purposes of the U.S. Senate as originally envisioned was to protect property (including creditor interests).

The Huffington Post observed
in 2012: “Wall Street's campaign spending and lobbying power is so intimidating
that banks have repeatedly stuck the public with the tab for their losses and
no one in Washington stops them.” This was a significant change to be sure from
President Jackson depriving the Second National Bank of the U.S. of funding in
1832.

Catholic economic, social and political ethics from Vatican II’s Gaudium et spes (The Church in the Modern World) encyclical in 1965 through the relevant encyclicals of John Paul II are “especially critical of the risks of avarice, acquisitiveness, and waste in consumerist societies, the indifference of many affluent people toward the poor, and the swing of governments away from redistributive taxation, welfare ‘safety nets,’ and foreign aid to poor nations, toward a kind of ‘economic rationalism’ that encourages and enacts hard-heartedness and selfishness.”

On the historical Christian views on the relationship between wealth and greed, and the associated theory of justice as love and benevolence, see: God's Gold, available in print and as an ebook at Amazon.

In Game Change, a journalist account of the 2008 U.S. Presidential race, the two political reporters conducted hundreds of interviews and had unusually close access to the campaigns. As a result, the reporters present some pretty interesting political morsels. For example, Hillary Clinton considered Bill’s administration to have been “a tactical and operational disaster” (p. 43). ouch! She would never have said such a thing in front of a microphone. This raises the question: do we, the voters, know candidates as well as we think we do? I contend that we do not, and, moreover, that this partially explains why we are so surprised when our elected representatives behave less than with maturity while in office.

In the constitutional convention of the United States in 1787, the property-interests were well-represented. Even so, a fear of a plutocracy was voiced by those property-protectors as well. While one might conclude at first glance that the wealthy delegates were duplicitous, their position was not self-contradictory, even if the bias toward wealth is discomforting for those of us who value representative democracy.

Thursday, August 3, 2017

The Obama Justice Department
developed a track record in challenging horizontal mergers and
acquisitions—those in which a company buys a direct competitor—in industries
that are already highly concentrated. In deals that are not between direct
rivals, such as those that occur in vertical integration, the Obama
Administration approved the deals, albeit with the imposition of legally
binding restrictions on the acquirer’s ability to use its “in house” supplier
to engage in unfair competition.

Martin Scorsese’s Hugo (2011) is an
intriguing story based on vocational functionalism, which in turn is based on
deism. In other words, the film essentially applies an early modern theological
"argument from design" to a pillar of modern society: one’s
profession. In this regard, the film is not just a kids’ movie. The visual
"3D" feature is not where the real depth of the film is located. The
story achieves its fullness beyond the visuals in having several levels around
a core philosophy, which serves as the story's core meaning. For this reason, Hugo has the potential
to become a classic. In this essay, I explore the philosophy that lies at the
basis of the film's story. I begin with deism and tie it to functionalism.

Fuqua/COLE surveyed 205 executives of public- and private-sector companies. Based on the results, I provide a critique that renders transparent some of the questionable assumptions that leadership-advisors and even business leaders themselves may have without realizing it. The full essay is at "Bureaucratizing Leadership."

Putting a religious faith through a particular political
ideology can be regarded as artificial because the transcendent is not limited
to the confines of particular ideologies.
Were it otherwise, the transcendent would not go beyond the limits of human
cognition, perception, and sensibility. Leaders of religious organizations
should thus be particularly careful lest they inadvertently cut transcendence
short. Practically speaking, that some members could feel marginalized or leave
the organization altogether is a capricious cost that can be avoided. In other
words, according to religious criteria, no
reason would exist for such marginalization or departures. Unfortunately,
religious leaders can easily dismiss this drawback out of a desire to channel
the religious through their particular ideologies. I suppose this is a form of
idolatry.

Wednesday, August 2, 2017

In classical literature, an apology can mean a defense, such as
Plato’s Apology. In modern parlance, an apology is known as an
expression of genuine sorrow and an acceptance of responsibility for having
caused harm to another person. According to Business Ethics for Dummies,
corporate apologies should be sincere, as soon as possible, and be coupled with
a correction to the problem.[1] Consumers should be on
guard lest a company use the semblance of an apology for marketing purposes,
and, more generally, to manipulate,
which in itself belies the “apology.” Robert Bacal advises that an apology be
used as a strategy to use “along with other techniques.”[2] An apology as a technique in a strategy is a means, and
thus as such it harbors ulterior motives. This invites “perfunctory or
insincere apologies,” which are “worse than saying nothing at all.”[3] Even a sincere apology
as a means to get something suffers from ulterior motives. For example, Bacal advises
that a “sincere apology can help calm a customer, particularly when you or your
company has made an error. You can apologize on behalf of your company.”[4] A sincere
apology is mutually exclusive with an ulterior motive, especially one that
is self-beneficial in some way; the orientation must be to the error. The
manager who wants to give the impression of an apology in
order to disarm the aggrieved customer therefore falls short, for such
manipulation eclipses genuine sorrow.

Tuesday, August 1, 2017

As R&D was at a premium in car companies reorienting to
electric and even driverless cars, Volkswagen could ill-afford the suspension
of the European Investment Bank’s low-cost financing in 2017. The company “was
barred from receiving European Union research funding over allegations it
misused a previous loan to cheat on emissions” by programming “11 million cars
to fool regulators.”[1] At
issue were the company’s “use of so-called defect devices, software that caused
pollution controls in diesel motors to work properly only when the engine
computer detected that an official emissions test was underway.”[2]
Accordingly, the European Anti-Fraud Office concluded that the company had
misled authorities about how €400 million ($472 million) was used ostensibly to
develop engines to be more fuel efficient and thus pollute less. I contend that
the company’s reply was worse than none.

Monday, July 31, 2017

Nietzsche
is perhaps most stunning in his eviscerating critiques of modern morality and,
relatedly, Christianity. His pessimistic attitude toward modern management is
less flashy, but no less radical, for the business world would look very
different were it populated by Nietzschean strength rather than so much
weakness that in spite of which—and because
of which, seeks to dominate even and especially people who are stronger. Accordingly,
this book provides formidably severe critiques of both business ethics and
management and sketches Nietzsche’s notion of strength as an alternative basis
for both. Nietzsche’s notion of the ascetic priest as
a bird of prey with an overwhelming urge to dominate eerily similar to both the
business manager and the ethicist. Therefore, the last two chapters are on Nietzsche’s
unique take on Christianity, and John D. Rockefeller, a devout Baptist
ostensibly compatible even with being an acidic monopolist.

Typically people react emotionally much more severely to an exploited conflict of interest when a person gains a personal benefit such as through a bribe. If company, or even an office or department thereof, stands to benefit inordinately, American society typically looks the other way on the institutional conflict of interest rather than taking it apart. This may just be human nature. However, the troubling institutional arrangements within an organization or between them may be tolerated because of the erroneous assumption that conflicts of interest are unethical only when they are exploited. Accordingly, the book provides a solid grasp of the structure and essence of the conflict of interest in order to make the case that it is inherently unethical. Examples of institutional conflicts of interest readily come from business, with particular attention to corporate governance and the financial sector, as well as from how business and government relate, such as through regulation The reader should come away with a sense of just how pervasive and ethically problematic institutional conflict of interests are.

Sunday, July 30, 2017

In 2007, the E.U. state of Spain “was hopelessly
addicted to a credit-fueled construction boom that produced a shattering bust,
leaving banks collapsing in the face of bad loans.”[1] A
decade later, the state’s economy was “expanding at around 3 percent” over the
previous year, “producing goods for export, generating jobs,” and pointing to
possible E.U.-wide economic recovery.[2] The
Spanish economy had returned to its pre-crisis size, according to the state’s
government, yet the economy had not yet solidified a firm foundation and
unemployment was still stubbornly high.